Brandwidth 2026: The State of Creative Operations in Grocery Retail

Brandwidth 2026 uncovers what's really breaking in grocery retail promotional production. Drawing on 256 marketing leaders across five markets, it reveals why 71% recently suffered a promo production failure, the hidden cost in missed footfall and team burnout, and how the smartest teams are using automation and AI to ship faster, cut errors, and regain control.

Download the full Brandwidth 2026 report to see the complete data and what it means for your promotional production.

Brandwidth 2026 at a glance:

The scale of the challenge — how grocery retailers juggle dozens of campaigns and hundreds of localized variants every month across multiple markets.
Where production breaks down — the failure points that derail promotions, from inconsistent brand execution to central teams becoming bottlenecks.
The real business cost — what production failures actually cost in missed footfall, revenue, and team burnout.
How teams are coping today — the workarounds, overtime, and partial automation holding campaigns together, and why they don't scale.
What comes next — how AI and creative automation are reshaping promo production, and what leaders expect within three years.